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Printed from Oxford African American Studies Center. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 07 June 2020

Locks, John W.

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entrepreneur, labor leader, and political and social activist, was born free in Baltimore, Maryland, to John and Chaney Locks. It is likely that he attended one of Baltimore's private schools for African Americans, and at the age of eighteen he began a three-year apprenticeship with a carpenter. In 1842 Locks s father died and willed him a house and a $900 account in the Savings Bank of Baltimore Using his training to obtain employment and his inheritance to finance a variety of business ventures Locks achieved an unusual degree of economic stability and prosperity for a free black man in a slave society He worked as a carpenter and a caulker and was promoted to foreman at a white owned shipyard With his funds saved in the Freedmen s Bank after the Civil War Locks began his most profitable enterprise a livery and hacking business ...

A version of this article originally appeared in African American National Biography.

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Printed from Oxford African American Studies Center. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).